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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

The emperor has no clothes... there is a skill in speaking in an optimistic way using a series of intentionally vague words which smart people feel bad about not understanding so they just pretend they do and think positively about a product because for the life of them they could not articulate why the pitch/business/product didn't have any value. There's nothing to argue against because "I don't know what you're talking about" is an apparent argument against yourself.

I'm going to start a business selling a quantum leap in synergy paradigms. Begin with the tagline, move on to a landing page, and after that's nicely done, get a group of people together to brainstorm what the company actually does.

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A few weeks ago had a call from a saleswoman,after multiple failed attempts ( she called a few people in the company until finally someone transferred across) she managed to talk to me. I get a fair share of emails,calls and LinkedIn messages because of my title- everybody is trying to sell. So I thought 'screw this, let's see what she's got to say'. After her intro, and me asking a number of questions,I was still not sure what she was selling ( something in the cloud). Started with some storage solutions and ended with some security analytics. So it's not the CEOs of these companies, it's the sales reps as well. How can ever buy anything if I have no clue what it is.

That reminds me a Dilbert strip:

Salesman: "We provide win-win situations and customer-focused solutions."

Dilbert: "But, what is the product or service that you actually sell?"

Salesman: "We don't sell, we partner."

The salesman exploits quantum physics by keeping what their company does in superposition until you collapse the waveform by revealing what you're willing to pay for. Instantly a developer at that company gets a bad feeling about something, but doesn't know what, until their manager walks over with a note from sales. They then retroactively do a bunch of work to have a deliverable by the next quarter.

All they care about is getting you in a demo or free trial.

After that all they care about is getting you to agree that the demo looks good.

After that all they care about is getting you to agree that this product could be somehow useful in your company

Then they pounce. They ask when you are going to sign the contract because if you don't do it ASAP you will lose the discount. If you try to say that you don't want it, they start with the guilt trip. "I thought we had a deal. I have already booked my trip to come see you next week."

> The emperor has no clothes... there is a skill in speaking in an optimistic way using a series of intentionally vague words which smart people feel bad about not understanding so they just pretend they do and think positively about a product because for the life of them they could not articulate why the pitch/business/product didn't have any value. There's nothing to argue against because "I don't know what you're talking about" is an apparent argument against yourself.

Sounds like WeWork. If you've ever seen that Neumann/Kutcher interview, that's exactly how it went.

I have a term for this phenomenon — the ‘Endo factor’. Credit to the geniuses at Theranos.

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